If Lawrence is putting defense first, then I don't want to see Stuckey on the court. His lateral movement sucks.

Knight, English, Singler, Monroe, Drummond is actually the best team that we have. Teams have to take us seriously inside, and be mindful of perimeter bombers. With that line up you don't need any 15-20ft shots. Its all layups, dunks and 3 pointers.

This is just terrible. I think Frank is worried far too much about bench production, thats why he rolls Drum out there with the second unit along with Stuckey, so he gets production for the 15-18 minutes that his starter unit isn't running. But its the wrong approach to the game.

Tay and the boys have been sinking coaches since Rick Carlisle. It's been horrible to watch. They basically bought into LB for half a season, and Flip for a season in the last 8 years.

I am not saying Frank is a good coach, but the Pistons throwing their coach under the bus when they didn't get the job done on the court is nothing new.

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Perehaps they would like to win games, and feel that is a high enough priority to otherwise break some rules. I am sorry, but the coaches Dumars has picked since Brown have been atrocious. Just how much patience do you expect these guys to have. Do you really respect a guy who remains silent and content to lose?

Perehaps they would like to win games, and feel that is a high enough priority to otherwise break some rules. I am sorry, but the coaches Dumars has picked since Brown have been atrocious. Just how much patience do you expect these guys to have. Do you really respect a guy who remains silent and content to lose?

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I think I have said this before, I am not sure, but I really disagree with this idea that seems to have gotten a foothold here. Frank is not content to lose games. This whole idea is just disingenuous.

Let us make a few assumptions. Firstly, he does not have a properly constructed roster for winning. Until BoT and Daye, at minimum, are gone, he isn't going to have the players that he needs. Aside from Monroe, there is no go to scorer, and because most of these guys are so young it is hard to run complex plays for them - they don't understand the theory behind the offense yet. But this will come. Secondly, in a guard dominated league, our backcourt is really just not strong enough. Best player in the backcourt this year? A guy getting paid $1m a year, with 1 year experience in Europe. Next up, a 30 yr shoot first guard widely considered to have lost his explosive first step. Not what I would consider the best building blocks. Our PG for the future (maybe) has made strides in the right direction with respect to passing, but we still can't space a half court play to save our lives because most of our players loose all coordination in their arms beyond 18 feet. A pile-up in the paint is not what I consider an efficient play style.

Do you know who I miss right now? Ben Gordon. His defense was awful, but hot damn he could shoot the ball.
Knight, Gordon, Singler, Monroe, Drummond. All of a sudden we have a proper in/out spacing and legitimacy. Our best shooter at the moment is probably English, maybe Singler. Not great.

But this is besides the main point. Frank isn't content to lose. We have all watched him lobster up and storm onto the court, yell from the sidelines and just generally care. I thought the Pistons could make a slight impact this year. I have now been forced to revaluate my position, but I still think that this team will improve. I have no doubts that Stuckey will be on the block from this point on wards, and I have no doubts that we will see massively increased minutes from our rookies over the course of the season. At this point, I take the football approach. Criticise quietly, support loudly.

I think I have said this before, I am not sure, but I really disagree with this idea that seems to have gotten a foothold here. Frank is not content to lose games. This whole idea is just disingenuous.

Let us make a few assumptions. Firstly, he does not have a properly constructed roster for winning. Until BoT and Daye, at minimum, are gone, he isn't going to have the players that he needs. Aside from Monroe, there is no go to scorer, and because most of these guys are so young it is hard to run complex plays for them - they don't understand the theory behind the offense yet. But this will come. Secondly, in a guard dominated league, our backcourt is really just not strong enough. Best player in the backcourt this year? A guy getting paid $1m a year, with 1 year experience in Europe. Next up, a 30 yr shoot first guard widely considered to have lost his explosive first step. Not what I would consider the best building blocks. Our PG for the future (maybe) has made strides in the right direction with respect to passing, but we still can't space a half court play to save our lives because most of our players loose all coordination in their arms beyond 18 feet. A pile-up in the paint is not what I consider an efficient play style.

Do you know who I miss right now? Ben Gordon. His defense was awful, but hot damn he could shoot the ball.
Knight, Gordon, Singler, Monroe, Drummond. All of a sudden we have a proper in/out spacing and legitimacy. Our best shooter at the moment is probably English, maybe Singler. Not great.

But this is besides the main point. Frank isn't content to lose. We have all watched him lobster up and storm onto the court, yell from the sidelines and just generally care. I thought the Pistons could make a slight impact this year. I have now been forced to revaluate my position, but I still think that this team will improve. I have no doubts that Stuckey will be on the block from this point on wards, and I have no doubts that we will see massively increased minutes from our rookies over the course of the season. At this point, I take the football approach. Criticise quietly, support loudly.

I think I have said this before, I am not sure, but I really disagree with this idea that seems to have gotten a foothold here. Frank is not content to lose games. This whole idea is just disingenuous.

Let us make a few assumptions. Firstly, he does not have a properly constructed roster for winning. That is an assumption, it is also an assumption that it cant win the way he is playing it. Until BoT and Daye, at minimum, are gone, he isn't going to have the players that he needs. Daye and cv arent even playing and have had zero effect on any outcome except making sure the bench doesnt get up and run away Aside from Monroe, there is no go to scorer, There is no scorer being played and because most of these guys are so young it is hard to run complex plays for them because this is the first time they have had to run a basketball play? I have to be honest Lawrence Franks system doesnt seem to be rocket science..and if it is a complex genius triangle offense? I dont think the starters are getting it either - they don't understand the theory behind the offense yet. But this will come. Secondly, in a guard dominated league, our backcourt is really just not strong enough. Best player in the backcourt this year? A guy getting paid $1m a year, with 1 year experience in Europe. Next up, a 30 yr shoot first guard widely considered to have lost his explosive first step. Not what I would consider the best building blocks. So if they arent working? why keep playing them? a good / half good coach would try a different approach Our PG for the future (maybe) has made strides in the right direction with respect to passing, but we still can't space a half court play to save our lives because most of our players loose all coordination in their arms beyond 18 feet which is again a good reason to play the young fella English who has shown the ability to hit the shot and play energetic defense. A pile-up in the paint is not what I consider an efficient play style.Which is why a stuckey, maggette and maxiel with monroe just serves to clog the paint and allow defenses to collapse, we need to play shooters at the 2 and 3 position. which should be english and singler, this will not allow defenses to collapse and will give monroe more room to work and pass or shoot. It will also provide offensive rebounding room if the defense isnt allowed to collapse

Do you know who I miss right now? Ben Gordon. His defense was awful, but hot damn he could shoot the ball. He shot poorly most nights, and was worse than awful on defense just ask the boobkats
Knight, English, Singler, Monroe, Drummond. All of a sudden we have a proper in/out spacing and legitimacy. Our best shooter at the moment is probably English, maybe Singler. Not great. Middleton is gonna prove alot of people wrong and when he gets the opportunity he will show just how much we actually have sitting on the bench

But this is besides the main point. Frank isn't content to lose. We have all watched him lobster up and storm onto the court, yell from the sidelines and just generally care. Ranting and screaming and mass substitutions may be fine for a high school coach, but these are million dollar professionals out there and if the coach is gonna put on a show instead of making a substitution to ebb a run? his players are gonna laugh at him ala flip saunders and he is a walking dead man on the sidelines. I thought the Pistons could make a slight impact this year. I have now been forced to revaluate my position, but I still think that this team will improve. I have no doubts that Stuckey will be on the block from this point on wards, and I have no doubts that we will see massively increased minutes from our rookies over the course of the season if we get more minutes for the right rooks? we will see improvement. At this point, I take the football approach. Criticise quietly, support loudly.

I think I have said this before, I am not sure, but I really disagree with this idea that seems to have gotten a foothold here. Frank is not content to lose games. This whole idea is just disingenuous.

Let us make a few assumptions. Firstly, he does not have a properly constructed roster for winning. Until BoT and Daye, at minimum, are gone, he isn't going to have the players that he needs. Aside from Monroe, there is no go to scorer, and because most of these guys are so young it is hard to run complex plays for them - they don't understand the theory behind the offense yet. But this will come. Secondly, in a guard dominated league, our backcourt is really just not strong enough. Best player in the backcourt this year? A guy getting paid $1m a year, with 1 year experience in Europe. Next up, a 30 yr shoot first guard widely considered to have lost his explosive first step. Not what I would consider the best building blocks. Our PG for the future (maybe) has made strides in the right direction with respect to passing, but we still can't space a half court play to save our lives because most of our players loose all coordination in their arms beyond 18 feet. A pile-up in the paint is not what I consider an efficient play style.

Do you know who I miss right now? Ben Gordon. His defense was awful, but hot damn he could shoot the ball.
Knight, Gordon, Singler, Monroe, Drummond. All of a sudden we have a proper in/out spacing and legitimacy. Our best shooter at the moment is probably English, maybe Singler. Not great.

But this is besides the main point. Frank isn't content to lose. We have all watched him lobster up and storm onto the court, yell from the sidelines and just generally care. I thought the Pistons could make a slight impact this year. I have now been forced to revaluate my position, but I still think that this team will improve. I have no doubts that Stuckey will be on the block from this point on wards, and I have no doubts that we will see massively increased minutes from our rookies over the course of the season. At this point, I take the football approach. Criticise quietly, support loudly.

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I did not say Frank was content to lose. I said he has far higher priorities. He probably hates losing. But he absolutely can not live with someone telling him he is wrong, nor admit, upon overwhelming evidence, that he is wrong.

Lets take his starting unit. An improvement. But Maxiell is still too short, and Singler is not quick enough to be a shooting guard. Sure, either can play some minutes at those positions, but any decent coach will see these weaknesses and exploit them. Then you got Tay, who, if you are having problems spreading the floor, absolutely should come out.

So here we are, not being able to score on one end, while not being able to defend on the other. An adjustment to the starting unit is in order. Bring someone else in, maybe even two guys. But wait, that would be admitting that the unit he chose to start has problems. It would be admitting that a better starting unit existed beyond what he chose. But this guy can't live with being wrong. Instead of making the adjustment, which might have resulted in a win, he chose to blame the whole unit for just being lazy, and took out all five starters.

Let me tell you about lazy. If you have nothing to do, you look lazy. A unit with no purpose will look lazy, cause they simply can't do what they can't do.

Anyway, coach hates losing, but he can live with it just fine. Its amitting he is wrong that he can't live with at all.

Let us make a few assumptions. Firstly, he does not have a properly constructed roster for winning. That is an assumption, it is also an assumption that it cant win the way he is playing it Technically it isn't an assumption - we have won games. Until BoT and Daye, at minimum, are gone, he isn't going to have the players that he needs. Daye and cv arent even playing and have had zero effect on any outcome except making sure the bench doesnt get up and run away I don't even know where to start. If you think having $12m a year tied up in completely non productive players is not a problem, then we shouldn't even be having a discussion. The biggest problem with this team isn't the talent which should be starting, it is the bench.Aside from Monroe, there is no go to scorer, There is no scorer being played and because most of these guys are so young it is hard to run complex plays for them because this is the first time they have had to run a basketball play?I have to be honest Lawrence Franks system doesnt seem to be rocket science..and if it is a complex genius triangle offense? I dont think the starters are getting it either There is a big difference between simple zone breaks in college ball and NBA defense's practised 8 hours a day by professionals being paids millions a year. There is an even bigger difference between the set play pieces, some of which can have over 20 points of movement in 15 seconds incl multiple picks. Watch a team who uses half court offenses with mature players and watch how complex they are. A 20 year PG is going to seriously struggle with the science behind it - they don't understand the theory behind the offense yet. But this will come. Secondly, in a guard dominated league, our backcourt is really just not strong enough. Best player in the backcourt this year? A guy getting paid $1m a year, with 1 year experience in Europe. Next up, a 30 yr shoot first guard widely considered to have lost his explosive first step. Not what I would consider the best building blocks. So if they arent working? why keep playing them? a good / half good coach would try a different approach The approach the game is limited by the players - keep this in mind Our PG for the future (maybe) has made strides in the right direction with respect to passing, but we still can't space a half court play to save our lives because most of our players loose all coordination in their arms beyond 18 feet which is again a good reason to play the young fella English who has shown the ability to hit the shot and play energetic defense Agree. A pile-up in the paint is not what I consider an efficient play style.Which is why a stuckey, maggette and maxiel with monroe just serves to clog the paint and allow defenses to collapse, we need to play shooters at the 2 and 3 position. which should be english and singler, this will not allow defenses to collapse and will give monroe more room to work and pass or shoot. It will also provide offensive rebounding room if the defense isnt allowed to collapse I agree with this and state it later in the post​

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Ranting and screaming and mass substitutions may be fine for a high school coach, but these are million dollar professionals out there and if the coach is gonna put on a show instead of making a substitution to ebb a run? his players are gonna laugh at him ala flip saunders and he is a walking dead man on the sidelines. In one game this has occured. It really got away from him, I'm not going to try and cover that up. Most of the times, he has tried to relieve pressure on the starters adequately, and adjusted roles properly.​

I did not say Frank was content to lose. I said he has far higher priorities. He probably hates losing. But he absolutely can not live with someone telling him he is wrong, nor admit, upon overwhelming evidence, that he is wrong.

Lets take his starting unit. An improvement. But Maxiell is still too short, and Singler is not quick enough to be a shooting guard. Sure, either can play some minutes at those positions, but any decent coach will see these weaknesses and exploit them. Then you got Tay, who, if you are having problems spreading the floor, absolutely should come out.

So here we are, not being able to score on one end, while not being able to defend on the other. An adjustment to the starting unit is in order. Bring someone else in, maybe even two guys. But wait, that would be admitting that the unit he chose to start has problems. It would be admitting that a better starting unit existed beyond what he chose. But this guy can't live with being wrong. Instead of making the adjustment, which might have resulted in a win, he chose to blame the whole unit for just being lazy, and took out all five starters.

Let me tell you about lazy. If you have nothing to do, you look lazy. A unit with no purpose will look lazy, cause they simply can't do what they can't do.

Anyway, coach hates losing, but he can live with it just fine. Its amitting he is wrong that he can't live with at all.

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You may not have meant it, but that is exactly what you said. And it's wrong.

And if you think our two biggest weaknesses are Singler being slow and Maxiell being short, then I consider you an optimist about this team, and I'm the one defending it.

I wouldn't get too hung up on trades KG. Our only decent trade asset is Monroe. We can fantasize about some sort of deal for a really good player in return for all of our dross, but that is, just a fantasy.

With the exception of Maggette, we don't have really compelling expirings, and we have zero talent anyone else is going to trade real talent back for in return.

Trading with the Pistons sounds like something a really dumb GM might do. See anybody you like on the Magic? lol

I remember back in the day, Jack McCloskey offered the entire Pistons roster to the Lakers for Magic Johnson.

That's ^^ a less than subtle reminder that we've been in bad shape talent-wise before.

Ups and downs with inexperienced players... unsurprising...you just have to live with that instead of screaming for trades, axing coaces in the internet. Rome was not build in a day. In 2-3 years we'll see wheter buildup from Gmon, Dre, singler, BK group is successful or not.

Don't know if anyone noted the poignant statistic to this conversation brought up by the Orlando commentators during the game. Orland have tried 7 different starting line-ups, think the Mavs were at 5 and the the Spurs had 4 too. I'm not one for necessarily changing that much, but to make only 1 adjustment (asked of him) after starting as badly as we have, is as bad as..... making one substitution in a basically the whole quarter where you only score 8 points.

Orlando also started their 19 year old rookie in the game, who played reasonably well.

I understand the starting lineup won't fix everything as I agree with Panda, that the bench is not much help, but I do think starting/minute changes to the rotation will help.

Ups and downs with inexperienced players... unsurprising...you just have to live with that instead of screaming for trades, axing coaces in the internet. Rome was not build in a day. In 2-3 years we'll see wheter buildup from Gmon, Dre, singler, BK group is successful or not.

The coach is just trying to work with what he has. Who would you play at SG between Stuckey, Singular ( who I thought was an SF ) and English? What about PG between the ever developing Knight or Bynum? There is just not much there. Only thing is maybe play Drummond more but they have said that they do not want to pile too much on him just yet.

After a second straight loss to a Magic team that doesn't feature two players as talented as either Greg Monroe or Rodney Stuckey, you have to wonder if the players are beginning to lose faith in Frank's abilities to make the proper adjustments during crucial moments.First-year Magic coach Jacque Vaughn made in-game alterations to his plan that the Pistons didn't counter in either meeting in the past five days — moves that can't be as easily explained by a lack of energy, although it could be a factor.

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Gores has said he's patient about the process of pro sports but also that he's impatient, as billionaires are wont to be. The question is, how long will he give Frank to turn it around?

You may not have meant it, but that is exactly what you said. And it's wrong.

And if you think our two biggest weaknesses are Singler being slow and Maxiell being short, then I consider you an optimist about this team, and I'm the one defending it.

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You can say I said it all you want, but I still never said it. In each case, I have talked about priorities. In Frank's priority list, although he probably hates losing, not losing is far down on his list. Things that outweigh it mightily start with not being able to admit he is wrong, making excuses for why things don't go per his plans, and finding reasons to ignore both the reality in front of him and anybody who would express an opinion contra to his. Frank is both blind, because he refuses to look at anything that might prove him wrong, and deaf, because he will not listen to suggestions from other people. So we have a blind and deaf coach. But I am not saying anything against blind or deaf people, just people who choose to be the blindest and deafest of us all, for not wanting to see or hear.

Point guard. Start Knight. Use Stuckey as his backup. And never play either at any position other than point. Neight can shoot well enough to be a shooting guard.

Shooting guard. Use English, or Middleton. Both can shoot the ball. Both are tenacious on defense.

Small forward. Unless there is a shorter unit in the game for the other team to where we can use Tay's height advantage to exploit this weakness, and provided Tay is out there actively exploiting that weakness, play Singler or Middleton at small forward. So we always have a good outside shooter at small forward, to go along with having a good shooter at shooting guard.